Tom Wheeler, President Barack Obama's pick to chair the Federal Communications Commission, knows the industry he will regulate well -- maybe too well.

Wheeler currently is a managing director at Core Capital Partners, a venture capital firm based in Washington, D.C. He represents the firm on the boards of GoMobo, an online and mobile takeout food-ordering service; Jacked, a software platform for mobile video and data services; LimeLife, a Web site aimed at young women; Twisted Pair Solutions, an interoperable communications software company; and UpdateLogic, which makes an electronics device management system.

He also sits on the boards of Earthlink (NASDAQ: ELNK) and Transaction Network Services (NYSE: TNS).

Wheeler also was a big-time fundraiser for Obama's presidential campaigns, both in 2008 and in 2012. Last year he raised more than $500,000 for the president's re-election campaign by tapping his network of friends and colleagues in the communications industry.

So given his close ties to the industry, will Wheeler be the fox guarding the henhouse if he becomes FCC chairman?

"The next FCC chairman will need to make substantial and meaningful reforms to promote universal access to affordable broadband, restore robust competition, and encourage the implementation of world-class broadband networks," Meinrath said.

Craig Aaron, president and CEO of media policy organization Free Press, said that "on paper" Wheeler "does not appear" to be the "strong leader" the FCC needs "to stand up and protect the public interest."

"But now he has the opportunity to prove his critics wrong, clean up the mess left by his predecessor, and be the public servant we so badly need at the FCC," Aaron said.

Wheeler's predecessor, Julius Genachowski, also was a Washington, D.C.-based venture capitalist with close ties to Obama. He worked on the Harvard Law Review when Obama, a law school classmate, headed that publication.

If you want to know what Wheeler thinks about telecommunications and Internet issues, he's left an online trail. You can check out his blog, which is still active even though he hasn't posted anything since December. The National Journal provides a handy look at some of his comments on issues ranging from the Internet privacy to the failed AT&T/T-Mobile merger.

Wheeler also led an FCC advisory council that issued a report in 2011 that recommended ways, in Wheeler's words, "for the FCC to unleash new private-sector innovation and job creation, without working through traditional regulatory processes."

Sounds like a regulator who doesn't think regulation is the answer to every problem. Is that what the FCC needs?